Want Your Battery to Last 50% Longer? Check Out SleepWell

How long does your laptop’s battery last on a single full charge? I still remember when this MacBook was new – I could stay unplugged from four to six hours (depending on what I was doing) without becoming edgy because of having to be absolutely sure that there was an available socket. Today, after many months of almost constant use, my laptop battery gives me about 3 hours max – if I am lucky.

I know that, for sure, I am not alone in this. Every laptop user experiences battery issues, and I am willing to bet that many will pay for a solution that results in longer battery life – as long as it does not involve having to lug around an extra 5 pounds!

The good news is that there is an existing solution to getting more out of your battery. It is simple – you simply need to change the way your laptop uses Wi-Fi. Of course, the average user will not want to waste time monitoring and tweaking settings all the time. And it may not even be possible to monitor and retrieve all the necessary data.

That’s where the new system called SleepWell comes into the picture. This technology has been developed by Justin Manweiler of Duke University. His idea is based on the fact that Wi-Fi drains the laptop battery (and other devices, for that matter) faster than a mosquito can suck your blood. ((Okay, exaggeration.)) This is even more applicable when there are a lot of devices around you competing for the Wi-Fi signal. With the plethora of Wi-Fi enabled gadgets these days, it is inevitable that your laptop’s battery will always be working hard because of Wi-Fi.

The solution? SleepWell will take control of the laptop’s activity with respect to accessing the Wi-Fi when there are other devices around. This simply means that when another laptop in the vicinity is hogging the bandwidth temporarily and there’s nothing you can do about it, SleepWell will let your laptop “rest”, thereby conserving your battery. The great thing is that SleepWell has been designed to cycle stagger the activity cycles of your laptop (or other device) so that you will not notice (or barely notice) the sleep times – performance is not affected.

The ultimate result – possibly double the battery life that you have now!

This is very new, but if it really does work as it is supposed to, we might very well see the technology applies in the near future.